MyView Learning Letter #13- Teacher Autonomy

One of the many concerns teachers have about adopting a new curriculum is that they feel they will lose their autonomy in what is taught and will become "robots" teaching from a scripted curriculum. How do I know? Because I am that teacher. I fought Reading First and having to use that basal so hard because "my way" was better. Well, I was young and I have learned. Maya Angelou said it best, 

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Boy have I felt this in my bones. Here's what I have learned and will continue to learn: 

1) Autonomy means the quality or state of being self-governing. While there will be a systematic and explicit pacing to follow, which you already do, you are still in charge of what that looks like in your classroom. You will have govern what the lesson looks like in your classroom based on the students in your care. More about this in #5. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/teacher-autonomy-isnt-dead-heres-how-to-achieve-it/2023/09

2)  I was not explicit in my teaching and sometimes am still not! I learned this after a coaching round at Westside this year. Following a scripted curriculum helps me be explicit which is how kids learn best.  https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-is-explicit-instruction

3) "HQIM (high quality instructional materials) Does Not Mean a Loss of Teacher Autonomy". This was taken from the VDOE's VLA Implementation Playbook  on page 25. "Many teachers fear a loss of autonomy when new curriculum is introduced. These fears are understandable for HQIM does require teachers to use their materials to ground all of their daily instructional experiences. That said, teachers will now be able to focus on how to engage their students in that content in the daily HQIM. As teachers become more versed with the daily lesson plans within the HQIM, teachers should be encouraged to think deeply about how to ensure students not only engage fully in that learning, but that students own the learning within the daily lesson." Having a plethora of the quality instructional materials means you get to focus on the delivery (internalizing and adapting) of the lessons rather than creating them. There is no planning and thinking about what to do, you get to plan the HOW. 

4) This section is taken from UFLI Foundation's Teacher's Manual about Implementation Guidance. "Implementation fidelity refers to the degree to which a program is implemented as designed. If the program is not implemented as designed, it may not achieve the intended student outcomes." (page 35) 

When I read this, I think back to countless of situations where we are not getting the student results we have wanted and many times, the company will say, "Well, you haven't been using it the way it was designed." Oh. You're right. 

Here is another quote from UFLI. "Attaining implementation fidelity should not mean that your lessons are stilted or robotic. Quite the contrary! As noted throughout this handbook, brisk lesson pacing and high student engagement are essential elements of every lesson. The key is keeping the lesson fun and supportive of students' needs. The best way to ensure student success is providing as many opportunities to respond as you possibly can during the lesson. Varying those practice opportunities keeps it interesting for studnets but varying it too much can take up valuable instructional time as you explain each new activity. It is fine to put your own stamp on the lesson, to personalize it to fit your teacher style as long as you accomplish the lesson goals." (page 36)

5) In The Broken Logic of "Sold a Story": A Personal Response to "The Science of Reading" by Thomas Newkirk found here (second link), section 11 says it best! "Science and Being Scientific I recently came across a comment from a parent, I've lost the source, but the gist was: even though the Science of Reading programs restricted teacher decision-making, they were firmly based on science. And according to the parent, that was a good trade off. Publishers are lining up with scripted, paced, structured, explicit programs that are advertised as based on the science of reading. There is a paradox here: "science" is viewed as a set of established truths that teachers implement, without being scientific themselves. That is, without the expectation that they monitor the results of their own teaching, and adjust that teaching based on what they see. In these systems they are not acting, or allowed to act, with the agency Tolstoy advocated: "the best method would be the one which would answer best to the difficulties incurred by the pupil, that is not a method but an art and talent." The problem here is that science is viewed as coercive, and producing results so certain, so conclusive that the only ethical position for practitioners is to accept and implement these truths. The issue, we are told, has been settled, the question of best practice answered. Yet the very nature of science is to be unsettled, to restlessly challenge received wisdom, and to constantly test out conventional wisdom in the cauldron of our own experience and professional work." (page 25) 

You must be scientific and not just teach the lesson scripted without paying attention to your own teaching and how the students are learning. You will need to look at the students in your class and figure out how to scaffold the lesson to make sure your students learn it. I go back to what the authors in UFLI said, personalize it to fit you and your studnets AS LONG AS YOU ACCOMPLISH THE LESSON GOALS. 

I know these 5 notes will not change your thinking immediately. I do hope that they have caused you to pause and reflect. That's the start. :) 

If you have strong feelings and beliefs about this topic, please reach out! I would love to chat because I have them, too!